The first half of the District 3-4A girls basketball season ends Friday with the kind of intrigue expected from the beginning. Only it seems the plot has taken an unexpected twist for one of the top three teams.

Or maybe not, when you consider all winning streaks have to come to an end. Canyon saw a 44-game district winning streak halted at home by Amarillo High on Tuesday night, 37-35. Not only are the Lady Eagles — who entered the week ranked No. 2 by the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches — dealing with the loss, but also the possibility of losing their spot in the district hierarchy.

It’s not like a 22-4 mark and 3-1 record in district is a cause for alarm. But Canyon isn’t used to losing games, much less trailing an opponent atop the district standings.

The Lady Eagles find themselves looking up at district leader No. 11 Palo Duro (18-6, 4-0), Friday’s opponent on the road in a 6 p.m. game that couldn’t be more appropriate to end the first half of district. Palo Duro coach A.J. Johnson sees a mixed blessing in hosting a Canyon team coming off a rare district loss.

“They’re going to be a lot more concentrated on what they’re doing than if they still had a winning streak,” Johnson said of the Lady Eagles. “I don’t know if they’ve ever lost two straight district games, but I’ve emphasized the law of averages says it’s going to happen eventually, so it might as well be at our place.”

Johnson was the only coach who knew what it was like to beat Canyon’s Joe Lombard in a district game for a 13-year span. The Lady Dons broke Canyon’s 92-game district winning streak in 2009, the last time the Lady Eagles lost a district game until Amarillo High and coach Jeff Williams pulled it off this week.

Not that anybody is going to feel too sorry for the Lady Eagles. They’re two years removed from an unbeaten state championship season and have two players — senior Kyndal Davis and junior Madison Parker — from that team.

Lombard and his players aren’t accustomed to losing and certainly can’t like what happened three nights ago. But Lombard is hoping his team can take some kind of lessons into Palo Duro after failing to hit 40 points in three of the last four games.

“I think our kids understand that we need to improve and we probably need to lose to get that through our skulls,” Lombard said. “We’re certainly going to have to improve before Friday.”

Palo Duro’s agenda is to finish the first half of district play alone atop the rugged district. With a talented retuning roster featuring three-year letterwinner Sasha Watson, that’s a distinct possibility.

“Our goal is to win our district, and a win puts in sole possession with at least a game up,” Johnson said. “It would give us a nice head start toward a district title.”

And for once, it’s Canyon standing in someone else’s way.

■ Dons, Eagles will battle for first: The Canyon-PD girls game isn’t the only one at the PD Activity Center with status atop 3-4A at stake. Following the girls game, the Canyon and Palo Duro boys will play at 7:30 p.m., with the winner taking sole possession of the district lead.

Both teams have been on a roll, as Palo Duro (14-5, 2-0) routed Caprock, 81-48, and Canyon (13-6, 2-0) beat Amarillo High, 56-50, in the first district meeting between the two schools.

“I just think Canyon is a really good team who’s playing really well right now,” PD coach Jeff Evans said. “We hope we’re moving in the right direction. We don’t think that peak performance has come around yet.”